This week in Geneva, the Human Rights Council is expected to take a position on the follow-up to a draft Declaration on the Rights of Peasants and Other Persons Working in Rural Areas. Five years after the start of the negotiations, we are at a turning point, argues a group of European academics.

The expansion of e-tools in rural areas will enable villages to become more agile, make better use of their resources as well as improve their attractiveness and the quality of life of rural residents, argue MEPs Franc Bogovic and Tibor Szanyi.

After a sleepless night, EU leaders clinched a deal on migration at their June summit. Yet, they seem overly focused on tackling the symptoms of migration, not its root cause – starting with poverty and unemployment, writes Tom Arnold.

The European Commission’s proposal to cap agricultural payments and provide more support for small farms has divided farmers in the Czech Republic. But there are other issues they should focus on, such as the ageing rural population and the challenges of modern technologies. EURACTIV.cz reports.

The European Commission has proposed to cut the budget of the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy by approximately 5%, but has prioritised the direct payments pillar in order to ensure farmers’ income and leave smallholders unaffected.

The European Commission is "aiming high" in the post-2020 Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), aware of the need to improve its architecture and links with climate and environment policies. But the level of funding that will be available from 2020 is still unknown.

Romania has made significant progress in the past decade thanks to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funds and it opposes potential cuts in the post-2020 farming budget, Agriculture Minister Petre Daea told EURACTIV Romania in an interview.

Simplified application procedures and better communication among local, national and European stakeholders are the priorities for the improvement of Leader programmes which finance rural development projects, a new study has found. EURACTIV Greece reports.

Many rural areas suffer from high levels of unemployment and lack vital infrastructure like high-speed internet and transport connections: the EU’s rural residents are up to twice as likely as city-dwellers to experience poverty or social exclusion.

Rural areas cover 52% of the EU’s territory and are home to 112 million people. They find employment not only in the agricultural sector, but also in the food industry and tourism, which employ nearly 15 million people.

Europe needs to address the rural exodus with policies and investments that make farming an attractive career choice. But political uncertainty over the bloc’s agricultural policy is keeping investors away, experts said at an event organised by EURACTIV in Brussels on Tuesday (17 October).

Millions of young people in developing countries who are poised to enter the labour force in the coming decades need not flee rural areas to escape poverty, according to a new FAO report published on Monday (9 October), seen in advance by EURACTIV.com.

The conflict between second and first generation biofuels – depicted as good and bad for the environment – only exists in Brussels. In fact, it’s the brainchild of the European Commission, Eric Sievers told EURACTIV.com.

In an effort to revitalise rural communities and make them more attractive and sustainable, together with MEPs, the European Commission on Tuesday (11 April) launched an EU action called “Smart Villages”.

The EU Federation of Organic Agriculture Movements (IFOAM EU) yesterday (19 January) sent a letter to EU Agriculture and Rural Development Commissioner Phil Hogan, calling for a “fundamentally new approach” to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP).

Direct aid, funds from the second pillar, input costs and farming income are just some of the many balls that agriculturalists have to juggle these days. These factors ultimately make or break a farming enterprise. EURACTIV’s partner EFEAgro reports.

The EU Common Agricultural Policy after 2020 should mobilise both direct payments and rural development pillars, in order to pave the way for the introduction of much-needed digital technologies in the farming sector, experts in precision agriculture told EURACTIV.com.